Up to four people, including a 19-year-old Norwegian, drowned in several accidents throughout Australia at the weekend.

The teenager drowned after swinging off a rope swing into a river west of Sydney. The man’s friends raised the alarm when he failed to resurface, and police divers recovered his body from the Hawkesbury River at Windsor about 6pm on Saturday.

Further north on Saturday, police found the body of a man who had jumped into rough seas at Wybung Head to rescue his wife, who had been swept off the rocks into the sea. The woman was washed up onto the rocks, from where she was winched to safety by a rescue helicopter crew.

Another man who jumped in to help rescue the woman was missing, and feared drowned, on Sunday. Police and paramedics rescued three other people. The two men, aged 24 and 26, were part of a group of six that had travelled from Sydney to the New South Wales central coast on Friday to go rock fishing.

In South Australia, two men risked their lives trying to save another man, who was still missing on Sunday. Rescue crews searched at Encounter Bay, south of Adelaide, for the man who was last seen in distress at Petrel Cove, near The Bluff, when he struck rocks and lost consciousness.

A witness who tried to help was overcome by the current and swept onto the rocks before being saved by a rescue helicopter crew. He suffered minor cuts and bruises. Another witness tried to lift the unconscious man onto his body board but was unable to do so and made his own way back to shore.

In Western Australia, a man was winched to safety after his yacht began to sink off the coast of Perth.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority received a distress call on Saturday at 5.27pm. Rescue crews found the sailor aboard the sinking vessel, 80 nautical miles off the coast.

An emergency helicopter crew winched the man to safety just before dusk.

Meanwhile in Victoria, two sailors were rescued in the Bass Strait after their yacht’s steering failed. Police said the men had been sailing from Queenscliff to Western Port on Saturday afternoon but had to issue a distress call, four nautical miles south of Point Nepean. The coastguard stabilised the yacht until water police arrived to tow the vessel to Queenscliff.